Something for the weekend: Fantasy new season threads

When the spending ban lifts and my credit card balance levels out, I'm planning to be very sensible indeed with this year's winter purchases. I'm really feeling the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo-inspired dark/gothic/leather-or-lace trend, and there are lots of key pieces around that nail the look but could still be worn for many winters to come.

Here's a taste of what's caught my eye in the first of the new season high-street drops:

How's about that for instant AW12 chic? This is pretty much my perfect autumnal look, I think: loving the cape (£tba), faux leather trousers (£40), and front of those black ankle boots (£70, they're a bit gick from the back) all from Oasis.

See, if I worked somewhere that necessitated the wearing of LBNs (little black numbers) I'd be all over this River Island sequinned mesh top (£45) like a sparkly rash. Or, er, maybe it'd be all over me like a sparkly rash. Either way, there's no such thing as too much bling in my book, and I'm an absolute sucker for shoulder detailing.

If that's too much black 'n' bling for your palette, what about this navy Oasis blouse (£48) with lace detailing? It's sweet without being overly saccharine, and navy tends to be more flattering on paler skintones than black (cue my mother's voice in my head telling me that black makes me "look very washed out" every time I wear it next to my face.) 

This is so impractical - I can't do sleeveless for day after about mid-September - and of course it fails the Mam test but there's something about this faux leather peplum top from Oasis that really appeals to me. It's a bit tough, a bit girly, and I can see it going with tons of stuff that I already own.

Would you believe I don't possess a single pair of black flats? True story. These studded Kurt Geiger flats are amaze-o but at £95 they're also really bloody expensive, so they're unlikely to be making it into my collection anytime soon. (I'm still totally going to visit them and pet them every time I pass a KG stockist so they don't start to fret that I've forgotten about them. Poor ickle shoesies.)

Have you seen any AW12 lust-haves yet? Leave me a link to them in the comments and we can go virtual shopping together!

Talon-tastic Thursday: Holiday nails (may contain feet.)

Obviously, I brought a few bottles of nail polish with me on holidays.

How many?

This many:

Since that clearly wasn't going to be enough to sustain me through a whole 12 day trip, I had to supplement my supplies with a few little purchases.

Ehem.

They're not all US exclusives, which is what I was supposed to be limiting myself to, but sure they were all considerably cheaper Stateside than at home. (That's what I keep telling myself, anyway; the fact that I am now on a self-imposed spending lockdown tells the rest of the story.)

In the end, even with all that shiny new loveliness to choose from, I stuck with just two variations on my favourite neon tipped tribal for my fingernails during the time I was away (which I suppose goes to show that I really need to cop on and stop buying more nail polish.)

on the Snake River, Wyoming (the altitude really dried out my cuticles, sorry!)

wrapped tight around a mug of that Irish tea in Watertown

For the toes, I remained loyal to my favourite neon purple.

It seriously goes with everything.

with black and white tiles in the Back Bay Social Club, Boston

with redbrick sidewalk in Salem

NOTD: Two ways with Butter London Wallis

Grab everything velvet, ornate, and a bit OTT in your wardrobe! Baroque is back for AW12 and to celebrate today I'm wearing Butter London Wallis, a piecey old gold that's an appropriately opulent way to tap into the trend. Described by the brand themselves as a tarnished metallic olive gold, the gold specks liberally scattered through the olive base have a subtle flaky rather than glittery quality and the overall effect is sumptuous and antiqued. This is a grown-up, decadent polish and I love the unabashedly not-trying-to-be-pretty colour.

I used two thin coats here, and it wasn't until it came to uploading these photos that I realised the direct sunlight had revealed a couple of bald spots; I find most Butter London polishes to be three coaters and it looks like Wallis is no exception.

The gold-in-green flakes lend the polish a textured, vaguely mossy look that I thought might play nicely with my Essence Matte Top Coat.

As you can see, the matte top coat really brings out the green undertones (and those pesky bald spots!) but it also gives the polish a soft, almost velvety look that's even more pronounced In Real Life. I still think I prefer it glossy, though.

Are you planning to rock Baroque this season?

Oh, did I not mention I was going away?

An organised blogger would probably have let everyone know she was off on holidays and no doubt would then have scheduled a load of posts to auto-publish while she was away, rather than seeming to disappear for a couple of weeks, but regular readers will know that I am not that kind of blogger. (I'd very much like to be that kind of blogger but unless I can squeeze a few more hours into every day or get hold of Hermione Granger's Time-Turner necklace, it's unlikely ever to happen.)

Himself had to go to the States with work (San Francisco one week, then Boston the next) and at the last minute I managed to tag along for the trip. Um, YAY! We spent a couple of days in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, then a couple of days in Yellowstone National Park (I was on edge the whole time, waiting for the place to blow à la 2012) and finished up with a few days in and around Boston.

I am notorious for taking rubbish photos of stupid things when I'm away, but I thought I'd give you a goo at a couple of pics from this trip anyway. Brace yourself for the most random assortment of holiday snaps you're ever likely to see...

first glimpse of the Grand Tetons from the plane

rush hour, Jackson Hole

the closest we came to seeing a bear in Yellowstone

BOOM: Old Faithful geyser (those two almost imperceptible specks to its right are people!)

Grand Prismatic spring, Yellowstone

sunset over Beartooth Pass outside of Cody, Wyoming

super retro cinema ads at the Mendon Twin drive-in, Massachusetts

letting Irish :) breakfast tea brew at the Deluxe Town Diner, Watertown, MA

melting in the 33°C heat and crazy humidity in Salem

windswept en route to the Boston hahbah islands

my only big non-beauty purchase: a grey ombré shower curtain

Talon-tastic Thursday: Olympics Special

During previous Olympics I've really only taken an interest in events where an Irish athlete was taking part. Living in a host city, though, I was glued to London 2012 good and proper. If I wasn't watching the wall-to-wall TV coverage I was listening to radio commentary or catching up with the day's events in the newspaper.

Needless to say, I loved the (mostly patriotic) nail art that lots of the female athletes were rocking. There *might* been squeaks of delight in our house every time the BBC deigned to show a close-up of fabulous fingernails (and that was just Himself.)

Want more? Check out my Facebook gallery of nails at the 2012 Olympics

We didn't just watch the Olympics from afar, though. We were lucky enough to snag a couple of seats for the historic Women's Boxing Finals in the first round of the ticket lottery and so Himself and his dad and I were there last Thursday to witness Katie Taylor take gold for Ireland.

And for anyone who hasn't already seen them on Twitter, here are the handpainted Irish/Olympics/boxing themed nails I wore to roar Katie to victory.

L: daylight, no flash; R: artificial light, no flash

Products used:
CND Stickey base coat
Topshop Crystal Clouds
Barry M Red Glitter
Rimmel Sea Green
LA Colors Treasure Island
Rimmel Blue My Mind
Yellow and orange polishes (brand unknown)
Black nail art pen (brand unknown)
Seche Vite top coat

New from Normaderm: 3 in 1 Cleanser + Scrub + Mask

I'm a long-time fan of Vichy's mostly excellent Normaderm range for problematic adult skin, but I'll be honest: I didn't expect much from this latest addition to the line-up when it arrived to me for trial last week. Normaderm 3 in 1 Cleanser is billed as a do-it-all make-up remover/cream cleanser/exfoliant/mask/personal chef, and while I get on like an oil refinery on fire with pretty much everything else in the Normaderm range, the cleansers have always left me a bit cold.

I found the Gentle Cleansing Gel Cream and Micellar Solution refreshing but about as useful as a pair of shoes for removing make-up, while the Cleansing Gel was too strong to actually use on my face. (It would probably have been great for cleaning a grimy bath if you'd run out of Clinique Clarifying Lotion, the Cillit Bang of the skincare world.)

Anyway, I've been faithfully using this new 3 in 1 Normaderm Cleanser + Scrub + Mask jobbie since it landed, reckoning that the key ingredients of soothing Vichy Thermal Spa Water, kaolin (to increase localised circulation and fight imperfections), salicylic acid (an anti-inflammatory to minimise the look of pores and soothe skin), and 25% purifying clay (to stimulate circulation and draw toxins and superfluous oil from skin) could hardly do my imperfection-prone face any harm.

Well.

It has absolutely surpassed my (admittedly very low) expectations and then some - it's currently vying for position as my favourite new bit of skincare kit. Here's the lowdown on how it performs...

As a cleanser
Formulated without parabens, soap, or alcohol, I'm not sure how well it would cut through soap scum in the tub but used on a damp face and wiped off with a wet cloth, this knocks the Emma Hardie cleanser I had been using into a cocked shower cap. It removes daily impurities and even my going out, nighttime make-up with ease while simultaneously reducing excessive sebum production. One application is all that's needed for skin to feel deeply cleansed and pass the white facecloth/cotton wool test afterwards, and it leaves my mush feeling clear and fresh but not stripped.

I've been using it twice a day with no adverse effects to date, and it's definitely helped my ginormous-in-the-heat pores look less crater-like in the sticky London tropics.

As a scrub
The minute exfoliating blue microbeads in the pale green cream can be massaged into skin for use as a weekly exfoliant, helping to unclog pores and remove dead skin cells.

I'm not sure that I'll be giving up my Origins Modern Friction addiction for this third of the 3 in 1 triumvirate, but it'll be my go-to substitute on holidays or when my Origins stocks run low.

As a mask
Apply a thin layer to skin, enjoy looking like The Creature From The Pale Green Lagoon while it dries for 5 minutes, then remove with warm water to look like your lovely self again, mattify skin, and promote a clearer complexion.

Vichy Normaderm 3 in 1 Cleanser + Scrub + Mask is suitable for sensitive imperfection-prone skin and is now available at pharmacies. RRP £11 / €13.25

The world according to OPI.

So according to details released to the Financial Times last week, OPI's most popular shades worldwide are - unsurprisingly - bright pink and reds, and work-safe nudes and neutrals.

Big Apple Red looks like a global favourite and I'm delighted to see that my beloved Elephantastic Pink made the cut. And hey: at least now I know what to wear on my nails if I want to fit in on a trip to Russia.

Are any of your favourite colours on the list?


FT clipping via Lena White

Oh hai there!

Between dealing with an epic procession of visitors, looking at wedding dresses, coping with a genuine heatwave in London, inflicting myself on the general public (I've been dahn Camden Lock Market, innit, painting some nails), and studiously ignoring the state of general untidyness that's building up at home, this week kind of got away from me.

First day in Camden! It hit 31°C! The jeans were a big mistake!

My genius plan was to blog and get a bit of writing done while I was at the market, where I thought I'd have quite a bit of downtime being a newbie and all, but actually I ended up being kind of busy.

I wore these:

to do things like this:

and this:

and to be thrilled silly when the Italian girl who went for the two-toned leopard print excitedly exclaimed "Belissima!" when they were done.

:)

Talon-Tastic Thursday: Nude And Neon Tribal

If I could only bring one piece of nail art kit to a desert island, I think I'd grab one of my black nail art pens. There's no question that they get the most use of all my tools and I think I've gone through 3 of them in the past 18 months or so. They're pretty versatile: off the top of my head, I can tell you that I use them for tribal prints, leopard print, zebra/tiger stripes, polka dots, lettering, and graphic illustrations as well as outline detailing, which really helps to make designs pop.

Most recently, I used one for a simple tribal manicure on nude and neon nails.

How to?

I started with a base coat of CND Stickey before applying two coats of Topshop Mannequin (£5/€9), which gives me dead hand syndrome if I wear it alone but looks like my perfect nude under nail art.

For the tribal print, I first drew a horizontal line across the centre of the nail to divide it in half. Then I divided each half into thirds by adding two equidistant horizontal lines on each side before doodling on some detail and painting the tips with Angelica Hip Hop (£2.50/€2.75 from Primark/Penneys.) Like all neons, this one is a bee-atch to photograph accurately; the bottle colour actually gives the best representation of how the vibrant pinky orange of Hip Hop looks In Real Life.

Do we like?

My Tan Commandments: Thou Shalt Totally Cheat.

One of my cousins got hitched last weekend (congrats again, Liz!) and since I was wearing this sleeveless knee-length number and didn't want to be mistaken for a milk bottle in a frock, fake tan was a must.

I'm not sure whether tan is supposed to be IN or O-U-T at the moment - honestly, who can keep up anymore? - but frankly I couldn't give a toss. The pale and interesting look that works so well for the likes of Anne Hathaway and Cate Blanchett just doesn't suit me at all and if I'm exposing limbs, they're going to see the business end of a self-tanning mitt beforehand.

Now, I need two applications of most light tans before I achieve a shade that I'm really happy with; I find that this gives a lighter and more natural result than slapping on one coat of a darker colour. There's just one little problem with that approach: I'm not organised enough to build up a tan gradually over the course of a couple of days.

So I cheat.

I apply one layer of tan, and after waiting an hour for it to dry, I apply another.

My other big tan cheat is to shower off the guide colour after 4 hours rather than leaving it for the 8 hours that most recommend. This, in my experience, is sufficient time for the DHA that causes self-tan to develop to bind to skin. When I do this, it doesn't interfere with the colour I ultimately achieve as the DHA is still on my skin and the tan can continue to develop post-shower, and it means that I get the benefit of being able to see exactly where my tan is going as I apply it but don't have to put up with the guide colour transferring onto my bed sheets or clothes.

Have you any sneaky tan shortcuts of your own to recommend?